Scent-sational

We have had an awesome transition into preschool this year. Little man has two teachers and they are so sweet, creative and fun that he has been excited to go! I think we have been the first one to arrive each day because he is ready to at the crack of dawn and begs me to put my shoes on so we can go! We wanted to let Mrs. T & Mrs. B know how much we appreciate them so we brought them mini reed difusers in a nice autumny, cinnamon scent. They seemed genuinely touched and little man was so proud to give them something.

Painted 'Tool

Little man loves his step-stools. We have them in every bathroom and he uses them all if the time to wash his hands. He moves them around as needed and often asks, "Where's my 'tool? I can't find my 'tool!" (He can't quite say his S's so stool becomes tool). I picked up a wooden one ages ago at the craft store with the intent to monogram it using my silhouette machine. A year later, I decided it would be best to just tape off an H and let little man paint. [The painting led to finger painting so we added a few hand prints to the stool too! Love those little hands!] I put a few coats of polycrilic on it and voila!

Baby Leggings

Before baby girl was born, I sewed her some little leggings. I used a pair of ladies knee high socks. You start by cutting out the heel and cutting off the toe. You fold the sole of the sock and sew it on as a cuff. It was one of my easiest sewing projects to date!

The leggings are stil a bit big on her but I think they will be cute for when she starts crawling around on our hardwood floors! 

And here are some out takes from our leggings photo shoot... 

My Bags Are Packed!

**Baby Watch Update: nothing yet. 6 days until due date. Little man was born 5 days before his due date so I think it really could happen any day!** 

My bags are packed and ready to go. Who are we kidding... they have actually been ready for quite some time now! Here is what I have packed...

Clothes for me and baby girl: 

-Swaddle blankets, burp cloths, hats, headbands, socks, mittens, sleepers and a gown. 

-Nursing tanks, robe, sweat pants, jeans, long sleeved tee and a sweater (plus socks and underwear!)

Bag for toiletries:

-Prenatal vitamins, hair dryer & straightener & 3 cosmetic bags including all make up, shower supplies, contact solution, deodorant,hair brush, hair ties etc. 

Snack bag for the boys: 

When little man was born the hubs didn't want to leave our hospital room to go get food for himself. I had packed snacks for that stay and I wanted to do the same for this one. Plus a bag of goldfish can give us 15 minutes of uninterrupted silence with little man!! 

Little Man's Busy Bag: 

Originally, I had planned on using these items to keep LM busy during our hospital stay. I thought we would be taking him with us for the entire time but I now have my Mother In Law to watch him while we have the baby and then my parents are taking over after that. I plan to bring this bag to the hospital to keep him occupied when he comes to see his new sister (just in case he loses interest in the baby). If we end up not needing everything in the bag I figured I would throw it in his stocking! 

-Big brother shirt, big brother book, wrapped Christmas present (it's a Melissa & Doug puzzle), plastic tools, notebook, crayons, stickers, dry erase toy, toothbrush & toothpaste (LM loves to brush his teeth and would do it for an hour if we let him!!) 

Folder for papers: 

This is a simple accordion folder that I have labeled to help us keep track of all of baby girl's medical papers for the first year. I've labeled the sections: Dr visit, shot records, important docs, and pamphlets. 

I also have thank you gift bags for the nurses:

We have the car seat ready and I also have a list of last minute items (phone charger, tooth brush, etc). Of course the hubs can't pack until his bag until 5 minutes before we walk out the door. We are so opposite sometimes!! 

Halloween Card 2013

I made these on Shutterfly and sent out to our immediate family. Love that little pumpkin!

Card front: 

Card back: 

Here is last year's card. He has changed so much! 

And here was peanut's first Halloween (2011):

And here are some of our out takes:

Nurse Thank-Yous

I made up these goodie bags to give to our labor & delivery nurses once we have baby girl. I included a bag of pretzels, almonds, twizzlers, snickers and a crunch bar. They ended up costing around $1 each since I had the bags and ties on hand.

Front Door & Stairway Updates

Where did the weekend go?!  I feel like I blinked and it was over.  We spent Saturday furniture shopping (we have a lot of furniture to buy to fill our new house) and we spent Sunday grocery shopping, Target shopping, mowing the lawn and taking it easy. We have a big week ahead of us.  My in-laws are coming to visit and little man's birthday is on Saturday!  He turns TWO!! 

Here are two mini-projects I have wanted to share.  The front door update I did a little while back and the stairway frames were put up on Sunday. 

 

For the front door, I added an "H" to the wreath as a way to change it up a little.

I picked up a wooden letter H at Joann Fabrics for $3, spray painted it silver and attached it with floral wire. 

Pretty simple!

I also (finally) added some frames to our stairway! Usually, I don't like a cluttered, mismatched look... but I will make an exception for gallery walls!

I had no idea how I wanted to arrange my frames so I traced them on newspapers and numbered them to help keep track of which template went with each frame. I taped up the newspaper templates and rearranged a few times. I think I still may tweak it a bit and plan to add a few more, smaller photos as our family grows (grows in numbers and grows in height!). Eventually, I would love to have the entire wall filled, all of the way to the floor, and extend onto the hallway walls also. 

(I'm not sure why the walls look green in the in-progress newspaper photo. The walls are a nice, light shade of beige).

I can't wait to add photos once our baby girl is born.  Ohhh, newborn pictures are the sweetest!

First Room Painted!

My mom is visiting this week and together we painted our first room: the bathroom!

It was easy to improve upon because the walls were an awful shade of pink. Typically, I love all things pink, however, pink bathrooms are never a good idea (never). 

We still have some work to do to make it perfect, but a fresh coat of (neutral) paint goes a long way! 

Father's Day Art

Little man decorated a coffee mug for his Father's Day gift. It turned out really cute and his dad loved it. 

We started out with a plain white porcelain mug and Martha Stewart paint made for glass/porcelain. 

The project was a little messier than I expected but it was still fun! Little man loved painting. We used only blue and green. There was a lot of color-mixing so I was glad I stuck with two colors.

I painted "2013" on the bottom and we let it air dry for about 8 hrs then baked it for 30 minutes at 350 (placing it in a cold oven so that it didn't crack). It is supposed to be dishwasher safe but is not ok for the microwave. Most importantly though, Dad loved it! 

The Great Gate!

The hubby and a friend built a gate!! The gate encloses our deck so that Miss June can sunbathe without escaping. We can also let her be out with us while we are grilling or dining al fresco. It gives her an outside area where she can be off leash since our backyard is not fenced in. We LOVE it!

Here is an in-progress photo of the Mr!

Also, I picked up a wreath for our front door! It is a little hard to see through the screen door, but it looks really nice in person! 

A Black Door

Our front door needed painted BADLY and it has been driving me nuts since the day we moved in.

So, I painted it! I used a high gloss interior/exterior paint. I wiped the door down with a damp cloth then painted using an angled brush and a small roller. The hardest part (by far) was selecting a paint color. I was going to go with pale yellow but decided black would match the shutters and was more of a classic choice. 

I love the way it turned out and am so glad I did it. Hopefully this will motivate me to paint the rest of the house (because every single room needs repainted, ugh). 

Here is another before/after pic! 

Sponge Balls!

I made these a while back and forgot to write about them! The sponge balls were easy to make and were a lot of fun.

Each ball needs 3 or 4 kitchen sponges. (I picked up a 10 pack for $1 at the Dollar Tree). You want plain sponges without the scrubbing pad. Cut them longways so they are skinny. Do this by cutting them in half then half again so that one sponge yields 4 pieces. Stack 12 pieces onto a ribbon and tie tightly in a knot. Trim extra ribbon and fan the sponge.

We played with these in the bathtub but I think they would be fun in the pool. Little man liked to squeeze the water out and throw them. He kept trying to throw them OUT of the tub which was a little bit of a problem since they hold so much water... so we might have to save these for summer!!

Click here for an online tutorial that gives more details on how to make them. It's the one I followed.